Adam Helliker

Whispers From The Top: The best informed, most entertaining diary you need to read

Adam Helliker: Queen tickled by her own series...

ALTHOUGH The Crown lost out at the Bafta awards last weekend, the makers of the highly praised Netflix series about the Queen’s early years can rest assured that their big-budget drama has one influential fan: the monarch herself.

There has been much speculation in court circles, and among the programme’s producers, over whether the Queen was among the viewers, and whether she would have approved of its account of deeply personal topics such as her physical relationship with Prince Philip, or Princess Margaret’s affair with a divorced man.

Now I can disclose that HM has watched all 10 episodes of the series, having been encouraged to do so by her son and daughter-in-law, the Earl and Countess of Wessex, who arranged for Saturday night viewing sessions in the sovereign’s private apartments at Windsor Castle.

“Edward and Sophie love The Crown,” says a senior royal source.

NETFLIX

Netflix series The Crown cost £100 million and has been praised for its production value

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The Queen really liked it, although obviously there were some depictions of events that she found too heavily dramatised

Royal source

“It has been a longstanding arrangement that they drive to Windsor at the weekend to join the Queen for an informal supper while watching TV or a film. They have a Netflix account and urged her to watch it with them. Happily, she really liked it, although obviously there were some depictions of events that she found too heavily dramatised.”

Other members of the Royal Family are also fans of the series. Princess Eugenie enthused at a party last week: “The music is wonderful; the story is beautiful and you feel very proud to watch it.”

Mike Tindall has also said he and his wife Zara, the Queen’s granddaughter, are “addicted” to it, adding: “She’s brilliant, the one who plays the Queen. I think it’s a great show in terms of how they delivered it.”

The drama, which cost £100 million, has been praised for its production values although it has been criticised for taking liberties with the truth, including its portrayal of the Queen’s relationship with Lord Porchester, her racing manager.

Filming has just finished on the next series, which will again star Claire Foy as Elizabeth and Matt Smith as Philip, and will cover the Queen’s life between 1955 and 1964.

The cast of The Crown vs the real Royal Family

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Her last regal role was in War And Peace as the seductive minx Princess Helene Kuragin; now Tuppence Middleton is to star in another BBC drama about a complex royal figure.

Tuppence is filming Diana And I, which will focus on the days after the death of the Princess of Wales and its emotional impact on ordinary people. It will be based around the stories of four figures – a mother, a son, a wife and a boyfriend – whose lives momentarily cross over following the royal funeral in 1997.

Whatever the merits of yet another programme about Diana, what viewers may really want to know is how Tuppence got her name.

“Tuppence is what my grandma called my mother as a little girl and my parents decided to call me it,” chirrups the Bristol-born actress, 30.

“I haven’t met another one – people remember it.”

But is this twinkly thespian aware that Tuppence is also a euphemism for a lady’s fru-fru? “Er, I became aware of that when I went to drama school,” she says, giggling.

“A guy from up north told me. When I informed my mum, she said, ‘Oh, sorry, darling. I had no idea!’”

It has been more than a decade since John Prescott pontificated to the nation as the syntax-mangling deputy prime minister.

Now the Labour dinosaur will pop up on our TV screens again in a documentary about ageing. The old booby will join 12 other personages, including Esther Rantzen and Roy Hudd, as they look at changing attitudes among pensioners for the More4 four-part series, The Baby Boomers’ Guide To Growing Old.

Lord Prescott, 78, will have something in common with another participant, Edwina Currie, 70. She, of course, had an affair with John Major, while Prescott enjoyed a two-year fling with his secretary Tracey Temple, who he ravished on his desk in Whitehall.

Most might agree that the election, so far, has lacked the levity of a satirical performer such as Rory Bremner or, going further back, Mike Yarwood.

While Bremner has recently confined himself to low-key stage shows, Yarwood would have once been expected to make the public giggle at the lighter elements of such an important political event.

His impressions of figures such as Harold Wilson and Edward Heath commanded an audience of 28 million viewers for a Christmas special in 1977. But Yarwood, 76 next month, is now retired, living on his own in a flat in Surrey.

The pressure of his success had led him to heavy drinking and, in 1985, the break-up of his marriage to Sandra, a dancer. “She put up with a lot from me and it was my drinking that ruined everything,” he told the Sunday Express in his only recent interview.

“I enjoy spending my evenings at home now because when I was working it was then that I should have been at home with my wife and children.

“I loved getting laughs, it’s a wonderful feeling. I always say to myself when I’m feeling down, ‘I could do with a good laugh’.”

With their wedding duties over, Prince George and Princess Charlotte have a special reason for wanting to hurry back home to Anmer Hall. They want to check on their latest pets: a flock of 36 Cuckoo Marans, a breed of French chicken.

“Every morning they love collecting the eggs, which are a much darker brown than normal ones,” clucks my source close to the royal coop. “The gardener has put some of the eggs in incubators, so the children will soon be able to watch them hatch.”

Pippa Middleton's wedding – in pictures

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Jeremy Irons leans to the left politically but his sympathy for a group of striking workers was tested when they interrupted a talk he was giving on TS Eliot’s Four Quartets at London University.

Raising his mellifluous voice above the din of their megaphones, Irons, 68, told the disgruntled employees: “Please stop shouting. It’s not the way we do things. Those of you from other countries are here because England is reasonable.”

He added earnestly: “I would be most grateful if you would let us talk about Eliot.” And they did.

When he was in The Style Council, Paul Weller used to sing about his “ever-changing moods” but it has taken until now for him to admit that he was dogged by depression in his 30s.

Says the Woking-born warbler, 58: “It’s taken me a long time to recognise it but depression is something I’ve suffered with over the years. I know I’ve always had that reputation of being grumpy but a lot of that really was proper depression.”

In 1990, Weller saw a therapist but gave up after a few sessions.

“Then I took antidepressants and everything was fine.”

Indeed, the singer is feeling so perky he’s about to become a father again – his wife Hannah is due to give birth next month. It will be his eighth child.

As usual, Sting is pretty pleased with himself. The tantric-loving warbler will make a profit of £27 million when his condominium in New York is sold, and he has received an award for Every Breath You Take being played 13 million times in the States.

But the Geordie milkman’s son, 65, has failed in one respect: to keep his pledge to stick to vegetarianism.

“I know we’ve got to stop eating meat because it’s killing the environment,” he says. “But we have livestock on our farm in England, so I thought, ‘Well, I’d better eat them’.”

Step aside, Theresa May; actress Caroline Quentin has her own manifesto for the position of PM. Her vision for the nation includes the return of free school milk, a traffic-free “day of peace and quiet”, a free Friday foot rub for workers who stand all day and a new national holiday on her birthday, July 11.

Plus a tax on over-50s who don’t have an afternoon nap – all proceeds going “towards the chocolate muffin budget”.

John Nettles is a chap of simple tastes. The Midsomer murder-solver muses: “A man needs three things in his life to make him happy. First is a large bank account, second is a beautiful wife... and third is a very proximate Indian restaurant.”